It might seem like a truism, but Otellini claimed that both Microsoft and Google were offering vast sums of cash to bring the Finnish hardware company on board. Seeing the contract go to Windows Phone 7 is also a hefty blow for Intel's own MeeGo platform, which had been used for Nokia smartphones in the past.

"I wouldn't have made the decision he made, I would probably have gone to Android if I were him," Otellini told listeners to a conference call reported by Reuters. "MeeGo would have been the best strategy but he concluded he couldn't afford it."

Otellini also claimed that the choice of Windows Phone 7 as a platform would see Nokia blend into the crowd, denying the handsets any individuality. "It would have been less hard on Android, on MeeGo he could have done it," Otellini claims.

"We will find another partner. The carriers still want a third ecosystem and the carriers want an open ecosystem, and that's the thing that drives our motivation."

The partnership announcement followed a stark and revealing email from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop to staff last week, showing the company's awareness of diminishing market share and describing Symbian as a "burning platform."

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The thing is Windows 7 although is new is a matter of the past like Nokia. I couldn't really see that they joining forces will help the market share. Still think Nokia should move to Android if they want to stay as relevant to the market. Or just improve Symbian and its services.

Never heard of MeeGo, but the symbian I had in my Satio wasn`t that good compared to the others, maybe Nokia had a better version of it running on their phones. The high price phones are covered now mostly with iOS or Android, what Intel could do is to bring their OS to the low/middle class smartphones, Apple does not make iPhones for that category and Android isn`t used for so many phones in that category. There should be a market for the more affordable smartphones.

Symbian was being thrown out and replaced with MeeGo, which from what I have heard is excellent. Have to wonder if this is all just a little soon - Nokia never really gave MeeGo a "go"...

"Financially motivated" in this case means "bought out" - from the sounds of it, MS paid billions for Nokia to dump Symbian and go WP7. I'm really curious as to whether this is a legally binding "exclusivity" deal, or whether Nokia is also free to support other systems.

Of course, no matter who Nokia supported - it means Symbian is now dead, so thousands of jobs will be lost - and Nokia will save significant amounts of operating cash.

I agree with you Werner, and if I push that logic, it's likely that Google (or Apple) is aiming at gradually expanding their share to mid/low price devices. It's just a matter of time until iOS or Android can run on pretty much all smartphones, and we probably know how this would pan out: iOS in a flat, light nano-iPhone (or anything 'phone' that can be sold at a mid-price range), Android on pretty much anything else that can run it. And when/if you can get those systems for $1-$49, I believe the market will be quite secured (read: locked) for the ongoing cycle. Nokia, Intel or MS don't have that much time to grab a share in smart devices operating systems, and above all create a valuable application store.

On the matter of exclusivity, even if there's no such binding for Nokia, I tend to think that it would be an unnecessary trouble to develop and promote a global application strategy simultaneously on too many systems. Not only would this raise costs compared to dedicated manufacturers (and surely Nokia doesn't need that), it would also be quite detrimental to forming a coherent image for Nokia's devices. If you and I, assuming we're the general public, buy a phone of the same brand, they should both run on the same OS (read: UI, apps, features...), have a common product identity. But it seems these days are more about buying an OS than a simple device, so maybe indeed we'll see Windows 7 being the primary brand visible on those new Nokia's.

I think simply going Android would put them in competition with too many manufacturers. Android is becoming the Windows of smartphone and as we can see, PC manufacturers' margin are pretty low. I guess Nokia want to avoid this "over"-reliance on one mainstream platform which they have no control over and with which they can hardly differentiate from other Android devices (apart from some UI tweaking).
About this subject:http://www.fernstrategy.com/2011/02/15/w...

They have less competition with Windows, plus you have one company trying to become a real contender in modern smartphones and another trying to become a real contender in mobile OS platforms. I think there's shared interest in trying to gain relevance in the market, and quite frankly I think WP7 has a lot of potential, and could fit the Nokia ecosystem..

It's a shame I suppose, Symbian^3 was a major improvement and looked a lot like it's rivals in many ways compared to past Symbian platforms, added to the fact the Nokia N8 was an amazing feat of engineering, but it appears there weren't the legs or the brand power to carry it forward.

I'm mostly optimistic about this, but wish to see no delay in bringing these windows powered hand-sets out. An update of the Nokia N8 would be immense I must say, and perhaps a complete re-make of the massively successful N95, a W95 of sorts lol!